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Older IT Workers Left Out Despite Tech Talent Shortage

105 points by monsieurpng 7y ago

fossuser 7y ago
If this is a real thing then it's something I'd want to take advantage of if I started a start up. American age discrimination laws only protect people over 40 from discrimination, they don't protect people under 40 from being discriminated against. This means you could advertise roles only for people over 40. If these people are being excluded for age and not for real reasons like ability then they are undervalued by the market. It'd be interesting to have roles that are explicitly only for people 40+. I'd want to do this and pair them with younger kids out of college who are just learning how to be effective SWEs as part of the role. Seems like a big potential hiring advantage if the ageism is a real thing.
- monoideism 7y ago
  > American age discrimination laws only protect people over 40 from discrimination, they don't protect people under 40 from being discriminated against. Are you sure about that? Do any lawyers want to weigh in? Explicitly hiring only 40+ for any given role seems like it would be a lawsuit magnet.
  - fossuser 7y ago
    "The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination. It is not illegal for an employer or other covered entity to favor an older worker over a younger one, even if both workers are age 40 or older." https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm
    - monoideism 7y ago
      Thank you, interesting. I found some other documents (by employment lawyers) online that support what you're saying: https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2009/10/23/can-employers-discriminate-against-younger-workers/ https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2009/10/23/can-employers-disc...
- masonic 7y ago
  This means you could advertise roles only for people over 40. True, but I have never seen this once in practice.
deleted 7y ago
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normalperson 7y ago
There is no such thing as a "Talent Shortage." There is, however, a "competent hiring" shortage.
deleted 7y ago
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jakebasile 7y ago
Maybe there really isn't a shortage of tech talent, and that narrative has been pushed by companies in an effort to encourage more people to enter the industry with the promise of easily finding jobs that pay well in order to increase the supply with younger, less expensive workers who are more easily exploited for long hours and poor conditions? It stands to reason that more senior devs would be the ones shafted by this scheme. Maybe I should get my tinfoil hat checked out, but every time I see a giant tech company with one of those "everyone can learn to code!" pushes, all I see are executives hoping to play the long game and reduce the cost of engineering talent.
- jknoepfler 7y ago
  If you don't have name recognition driving candidates through the door, it can be shockingly difficult to get competent candidates. I'm talking basic senior engineer level (can be trusted to set up a web service from scratch without supervision). Most of the candidates you see either can't pass fizz buzz (no joke), are very junior (have no practical experience building real services), have severe behavioral problems (need to be told exactly what to do, can't be trusted to own a service, etc.), or are washed up enterprise technicians who need someone to build all their scaffolding for them and can't solve simple problems if there isn't an IDE for it (.NET/etc. lifer). The "smart" version of those archetypes often do OK at places like amazon, which provides scaffolding and oversite, but they will absolutely gut a small startup dev team. (source: personal experience regretting startup hires who seemed "ok" when we were desperate, who subsequently left a trail of sadness and surprises in their wake through inattention, stupidity, and general failure to care) I think this is particularly difficult for companies with non-technical founders that might lack strong technical leadership out the gate.
  - rednerrus 7y ago
    This really puts into words the problems I've seen working in startups.
- mattmar96 7y ago
  Tech talent shortage is real. We can't find anyone worth interviewing right now, as a 5 person startup. (And no, we aren't age discriminating)
pacaro 7y ago
I wonder about this, I don't dispute that there is an issue here, but I think that this, and similar analyses, fails to take into account the change in the size of the IT workforce over time. I'm currently 47, I started my first paid developer role (job title "Analyst/Programmer"!) 25 years ago. The size of the job market then was a fraction of the size that it is now. Inevitably there are fewer older people in the workforce. I'm much more interested in attempts to quantify age-related hiring discrimination, something that I have been fortunate enough not to encounter (yet), but that my brother (50) currently feels like he is running up against.
- jrochkind1 7y ago
  that is a very good point.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  Age discrimination in hiring is real. Companies get around it by saying, "Oh, we can't possibly pay what someone with your level of experience expects." Usually even before a dollar figure has even been discussed.
  - pacaro 7y ago
    For sure, I encountered a related issue about 18 years ago, I had been working for a company that was paying well, but that had closed down the project I was working on, as part of due diligence I was talking to other companies in addition to considering lateral moves. Several of the other companies were very clear that they couldn't pay me what I was accustomed to, and that was a show-stopper for them, regardless of whether I was interested in taking a lower income
    - pacaro 7y ago
      i.e. some potential employers will be leery about employing someone at a lower salary that they had previously earned, for a variety of reasons. I can imagine this being part of a double whammy with age discrimination.
  - 7y ago
avgDev 7y ago
I feel as partially this happens because older people don't buy into the hype, can read through BS, and won't slave away 70 hrs a week for the same wage. Younger people are less experienced, have less opinions and in most case less life lessons. Tech companies want to move fast and make money, not question what is ethical.
- threeseed 7y ago
  > have less opinions I find this almost always to be the opposite.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    His statement could probably be better refined as "largely keep their opinions to themselves and do their jobs." IME, older workers were raised not to discuss politics or religion at work.
  - kenhwang 7y ago
    Younger opinions are easier to influence. Older opinions are pretty ingrained which makes them annoying to deal with when they come up.
    - elcaminocomplex 7y ago
      Translating: "People with little experience have ill-formed opinions and thus when you point out the holes in their arguments they cave, whereas experienced people have well-formed opinions which makes it difficult for you when you have weak arguments by which you try to change their opinion."
      - ecnahc515 7y ago
        I agree with you but it’s still possible to make a perfectly well formed argument and still not be correct or the best choice for the situation.
      - sitkack 7y ago
noicebrewery 7y ago
Why pay an older software engineer a high rate for a wealth of experience when you can hire two graduates who won't make a 25 year old trust fund baby tech bro feel inadequate
reaperducer 7y ago
There was an interesting piece on the CBS Evening News, maybe this past Friday, about how some companies are bringing in older (50+) workers to great benefit. The only thing these people ask for is flexible schedules.
- save_ferris 7y ago
  I think this is a huge part of the conversation that is being overlooked. Younger workers are perhaps more willing to grind than more experienced devs. I’d gladly take 20% pay cut to get Fridays off, but I’d get laughed out of my current gig if I asked for that. It seems like most gigs are full-time, usually with an on-call rotation, and if those aren’t compatible with your schedule, good luck.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    But they have to grind because they lack the experience to fall into those traps in the first place.
mpfundstein 7y ago
Honestly, the best devs/CTOs I worked with are older than 45... I don’t get why our industry is like this. Learn from the (old) masters... thats true for art as well as for coding
dboreham 7y ago
Odd that nobody is writing articles about how airlines are hiring 25 year old pilots or hospitals are recruiting 25 year old ansetheseologists. Their 55 year old colleagues stuck looking for gainful employment.
keyle 7y ago
Youngsters are more malleable to whatever theocratic management scheme you want to shoehorn in. Oldie don't buy in the cult driven bend-over management schemes used in many places. In short, they outwit their own positions.
rgbrenner 7y ago
There's no shortage of talent. If there was a shortage we would see real indicators of a shortage like increasing average salaries across the field, training programs, etc. Instead employers consistently use bullshit to filter, puzzles without any relation to the job, etc in their hiring. That's a strong indicator that there's no shortage. If employers are making up things to filter candidates, then they have too many options. If I had to guess, this is probably just more propaganda from the large tech companies to get more people into the field and an increased visa cap, so they can drive down wages.
- h3throw 7y ago
  I don't understand people who say this. Have you ever tried to hire? I'm 28yrs old and I make ~$400K/yr. That doesn't happen when there's some major abundance of talent sitting around.
  - rgbrenner 7y ago
    I make quite a bit too... but the average developer doesnt.. average US software dev salary is just $100k/year.
    - jimbokun 7y ago
      That's more than about 90% of US workers.
      - mikekchar 7y ago
        TL;DR (in advance): I think you are correct in your estimate, though household income is higher than that. $100K household income is still considerably higher than most Americans make. Just to give some real numbers, the median household income in the US is $63,688. Unfortunately I couldn't find reliable numbers for dual income families in the US, but it appears to be over 60% (I saw numbers anywhere between 60-69%, but unfortunately no authoritative references). Rough histogram of income distribution is: 10th percentile: < $15K 20th percentile: $15K <=> $25K 30th percentile: $25K <=> $35K 40th percentile: $35K <=> $50K 50th percentile: $50K <=> $65K 60th percentile: $65K <=> $80K 70th percentile: $80K <=> $130K 80th percentile: $130K <=> $160K 90th percentile: > $160K I constructed this from a variety of different sources since I couldn't find anything that stated it explicitly. It is not entirely accurate, but it should give you a rough idea of the distribution. Would be nice if someone could find better data.
throwawaybungie 7y ago
This is a tough one— a lot of hiring & “diversity & inclusion” initiatives very rarely discuss age Is that others’ experience?
- t34543 7y ago
  In the companies I’ve worked: yes.
- sethammons 7y ago
  Age has been explicitly called out in every D&I initiative I've been party to, just not as loudly as some other segments, namely gender, sexual orientation, and race. But definitely mentioned.
robotburrito 7y ago
I'm 38 and a relatively new dev with ~3 years of experience in a wide variety of tech. Live here in SF and have been doing the whole job hunt thing. This article stresses me out and makes me feel like if I don't get my next good job in a year or so I am basically locked out of a career... I hope this is not true!
- scarface74 7y ago
  Honestly, while I don’t see much discrimination for older devs in general. If your experience doesn’t match what you “should” have for your age, it might be different.
colechristensen 7y ago
When you job interview around the bay area one thing which is absolutely striking is the diversity of the companies you visit. Sometimes it feels like you're in different countries on opposite sides of the planet. There's no way that is accidental, agism and racism is absolutely rampant, but not necessarily along traditional lines.
- masonic 7y ago
  I don't see true diversity. There is little ethnic diversity off the white/asian axis and little age diversity beyond age 35. There isn't usually much gender diversity in technical roles, either.
nine_zeros 7y ago
There is definitely ageism but thats because younger unqualified employees are asked to evaluate older candidates. Younger employees (especially single ones) are usually subconsciously also looking for buddies to have fun with. Which eliminates a lot of older people who just want to work and go home. Further, younger employees also expect older candidates to be some super goddamn geniuses. Even if they are, the interview process never looks for that genius. Also, not all old candidates are genius and its hard for young kids to acknowledge because they just dont know any better. On the other hand, old farts sometimes think too much of themselves. Also, some older candidates just dont want to relocate. Which reduces options A LOT. Very few old candidates want to relocate from rural Indiana to SF bay area. The jobs exist, the talent shortage exists. But the demand isn't meeting supply and when it does, the evaluators are usually incompetent.
gleenn 7y ago
> One problem is that some older IT workers who get too comfortable with their skills risk falling behind, especially in the era of artificial intelligence, said Michael Solomon, co-founder and managing partner at 10x Ascend, an advisory firm for senior technology job seekers. Um, what? AI isn't taking any tech jobs. Maybe once we figure out how to have the robots program themselves...
- jimbokun 7y ago
  But it could take the tech jobs of programmers that don't know how to utilize ML/AI technology stacks.
- ecnahc515 7y ago
  I definitely read that differently than you. They’re just saying AI is a newer field and that older people tend to have less experience here.
  - gleenn 7y ago
    The "era of Artificial Intelligence" doesn't seem like it's a new software stack to learn when phrased like that to me, but to each their own.
Iv 7y ago
> One problem is that some older IT workers who get too comfortable with their skills risk falling behind, especially in the era of artificial intelligence I am 38, I am in the gap they point out, and I almost fell in it because for too long I thought deep learning was a hype that would eventually die out. I had to have a client force me to look into it to realize that half of my skillset in computer vision became obsolete almost overnight, and the other half is eroding quickly. We think we know better than the youngsters and in several fields, that's painfully obvious, but let's not be oblivious to the fact that tech still evolves and that half of our job is catching up with it.
- ecnahc515 7y ago
  Would you mind elaborating? As a young developer who wishes to remain a in the engineering track long term, Id like to understand more about how you realized your skill set was no longer “up to par”. I’m surprised computer vision is becoming less relevant, is it because the techniques have shifted from known algorithms that work to using machine learning to develop better algorithms from training?
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    Not the OP, but this is incredibly common. I will say that if you wish to continue working as a programmer for your entire career it is a mistake to specialise in a particular technology. It doesn't matter what technology that is. The more you specialise, the less versatile you appear to employers. It just doesn't matter what you are working on. It could be a website, or it could be a computer vision system. You use a handful of languages, frameworks, techniques, etc and 10 years later these are no longer in vogue. I think the most important thing to keep reminding yourself is that your career will hopefully last 40-45 years! The pace change of technology is increasing, rather than decreasing. If you think the flavour of the month JS frameworks are hard to keep track of now, wait 10 years when there are 4 to 5 times as many programmers working and what's hot changes practically every day. You are not "safe" with any technology. Even ML techniques will change completely an absurd number of times in the 45 years of your career. Your only hope of staying employed as a programmer for the entire time is to build yourself as someone who can pick up and work on anything at the drop of a hat. Similarly, you need a "story" that explains why you are worth more money than a person with 2-3 years of experience that has specifically trained for the flavour of the month that the company is using now. They will happily chew up and spit out those young programmers and pick up new ones when they go with the new technology. Why would they spend a premium on you? You need an answer (and a good answer) for that question. (I was going to try to answer that question for you, but it's probably better for you to figure it out for yourself... Plus any answer I give is undoubtedly piss off a bunch of people who will identify overmuch with the group I'm marketing myself as "better than" ;-) )
codingslave 7y ago
As has been mentioned in here, the "Talent Shortage" was made up to get an increase in H1B visa workers to drive down wages and get more for their money. It has always been about flooding the developer job market. Case in point are the interviews at many big tech companies that require leetcode/algorithms interviews. Companies are ready to reject any candidate that makes even a small mistake on one of their solutions, or misses the exact optimal solution. If they really needed top talent and couldn't find it, they wouldn't be so careless in their hiring rejections. Another issue is also that its really difficult to quickly shift tech stacks on a dime. As much as people like to claim it to be possible, even just upgrading from Hadoop/MapReduce/Older big data technologies to Apache Spark is a massive time investment. The paradigms are the same, the technology when used in practice is different. Workers can see their whole knowledge base become useless in the span of two years. As an individual worker, if this happens three times in 8 years, I think burnout would be expected. Anyone who is capable of constantly updating their technology knowledge to a T is probably already CTO of a company somewhere. Maintaining the ability to memorize and understand inane minutia over a few decades span is rare, and is probably coupled with severe disabilities in other areas of life.
kundiis 7y ago
Management can hire 2 fresh grads, roughly same cost as 1 senior candidate. There are companies where headcount is important for managers to become and grow their org. In addition, fresh grads usually have exposure to latest stuff and are eager to make their way in, work 60+ hrs, have fresh perspective, can crack academic style company interviews. Overall good for the company for less money.
- sys_64738 7y ago
  The counter to this is those fresh ideas are built on their limited knowledge of some buzzwords connected to a framework in python which is only in alpha quality. The number of kids who think new is better because they used it on their final year team project so must apply it to production servers is scary. It needs older, experienced workers to say the magic word: No.
- MrMorden 7y ago
  Two fresh grads working 60 hours a week are about as productive as one fresh grad working 40 hours a week. That may be good for someone, but not the company.
- masonic 7y ago
  Management can hire 2 fresh grads, roughly same cost as 1 senior candidate Then 18 months later, both cheap, fresh grads would be gone, chasing the first shinier bauble dangled by a competitor.
hanoz 7y ago
Interesting to read that "the largest gap occurs among workers ages 35 to 44”. This is the first wave of internet professionals, the people who built the web as we know it. Above that age range and you're getting into old school IT territory, and below you've got the new wave of web developers with different ideas who might regard the old guard as being stuck in their ways.
- skybrian 7y ago
  That range is too young for "people who built the web." A 44-year-old was 20 in 1995 (just after Netscape came out), so probably still in school, and a 35-year-old was 11.
  - hanoz 7y ago
    I knew I was going to get picked up on that. I mean brought the web out of academia and made it the universally recognised platform it is today.
rinchik 7y ago
Are they really being left out though? I understand the notion of ageism, and not at all saying it doesn't happen in software development, the point is, what if there are other factors also in play here? What if this "trend" is just a natural phenomenon? Software Development is one of the most aggressive industries that are out there. Tech evolves daily with major trends shifting monthly. It's extremely hard to keep up! And it's extremely easy to become "part of the road" if you don't invest heavily in your professional development by studying the "steamroller". What if older software developers are just the road, modern tech "steamroller" is rolling over? There are quite a few percent of the bright and knowledgeable older software engineers, but what about the "average" ones? Ones who got tired, have families and just don't want to be bothered with making themselves uncomfortable by trying to "keep up"? What about those who were sitting comfortably a decade with the oldest tech you can imagine that was "current" in early 2000, and now wind has changed? It seems logical to assume that a job search for those is gonna be tough! Also about bootcamps, Erik Meijer makes an interesting point about "amateurs in our industry", that people who live, sleep, and breath code for 20+ years should be able to comfortably retire near 40, meaning this problem we are discussing here should never be a problem to begin with.
sys_64738 7y ago
There are a whole slew of issues related to this. Managers often feel that older employees don't take them as seriously as younger people. Younger folk are less likely to have seen it 'all' like older workers. There's also the age dynamic of an org. Some companies hire young because of the culture of 'work hard play hard' where younger folk buy-in but older folks skip it and go home to their families. Older people are more experienced and more expensive in general. Younger people are also more likely to be willing to work to burn out as they've not done it before and managers know that. My two pronged approach to getting older in the workforce is to make sure there are people older than me at my work place, and have an exit strategy for when the jobs dry up completely.
marcoseliziario 7y ago
I am over 40 right now, and, frankly, I don't see too much of this problem right now. As you get older, you need to understand that you need to adapt. It's easier to get in the trap of thinking that the old ways are better (and sometimes, indeed they are), but it doesn't matter. You have to go with the flow. Another important thing is that you shouldn't get too attached to technologies. Move with the times, be aggressive with learning. Appreciate new languages, new paradigms. Yes, it sucks when you spent hours honing your skills with Hadoop and then one day you find out that all the cool kids are doing spark. But, the thing is, the people that are doing spark now are the people that were doing Hadoop yesterday, some of them even older than you. It was you that got in the comfort zone and didn't see that the field was evolving. While you were satisfied doing Hadoop, some people were thinking of how the job could be done in a different way. And I am not telling here that you should be doing open source, but you should have kept yourself on the loop. It is not unfair, and it's not unique to our profession. there was a time where lobotomy was the hot thing on psychiatry, people probably spent hours honing their skills on it, and then, someday, science evolved and we figured out that those skills were not only useless but also dangerous. Maybe this happens way faster in our profession, but also it is a lot easier for us to keep ourselves current on the state of the art than for a surgeon.
- scarface74 7y ago
  I’m 45 and I share your experience - no age discrimination. But, I did hear my manager (50+), who is very technical and often gets so sick of the process to get things done, he will pull up an IDE and do a POC himself, bemoan the fact that older developers are good for backend development and architecture but not as good at modern front end development. I’m not taking any chances. I’m moving more into cloud architecture but hopefully I can stay more in the professional services/development/consulting than the Visio creating/Project Management/Solutions Architect role. But, I’m definitely not spending the energy keeping up with the latest $cool_kids front end stack.
  - marcoseliziario 7y ago
    Funnily enough, I love React. Maybe because I am old enough to have worked with Borland's Delphi in the past. The feeling I have is that React and UI frameworks put programmers with no design background back in the User Interface game. Because, for the love of God, I hate CSS with a passion. I enjoy doing side projects not only for the money, but also because of the good feeling of owning the whole stack of the product.
jmkd 7y ago
I'm mid-40s, Xoogler, Program Manager, Startup founder & failer, UK-based. 130 applications since March, 4 interviews, no offers. Previous blue-chip job history with 100% application success rate, through my 20s and 30s. Have now left the industry due to what I and various recruitment professionals had to conclude was age discrimination. It exists.
- cpeterso 7y ago
  I now omit my university dates on my resume and sometimes drop older jobs LIFO. The tools and experience from those jobs is less relevant to my current work anyway.
- frogperson 7y ago
  have you considered consulting? Companies love to pay extra for experience, but only in small doses.
ThrowMeAwayOkay 7y ago
I just want to say: read these threads if you value your software career. There is golden advice from those who’ve seen it. Done it.
ijiiijji1 7y ago
The "noble savage" mythology of engineering is the "neophyte genius".. youthful != better, despite consumerism KoolAid or blatant ageism sentiments to the contrary. You can't get Joe Armstrongs at 16-24.. mastery and wisdom aren't things a capable novice can contain a-priori.
altmind 7y ago
There is no IT talent shortage. IT companies circulate this myth to get access to work visas and broaden the workforce market, optimizing the salary budget. The universities reaffirm that to get more applicants.

105 points by monsieurpng 7y ago

If this is a real thing then it's something I'd want to take advantage of if I started a start up. American age discrimination laws only protect people over 40 from discrimination, they don't protect people under 40 from being discriminated against. This means you could advertise roles only for people over 40. If these people are being excluded for age and not for real reasons like ability then they are undervalued by the market. It'd be interesting to have roles that are explicitly only for people 40+. I'd want to do this and pair them with younger kids out of college who are just learning how to be effective SWEs as part of the role. Seems like a big potential hiring advantage if the ageism is a real thing.

monoideism 7y ago
> American age discrimination laws only protect people over 40 from discrimination, they don't protect people under 40 from being discriminated against. Are you sure about that? Do any lawyers want to weigh in? Explicitly hiring only 40+ for any given role seems like it would be a lawsuit magnet.
- fossuser 7y ago
  "The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination. It is not illegal for an employer or other covered entity to favor an older worker over a younger one, even if both workers are age 40 or older." https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm
  - monoideism 7y ago
    Thank you, interesting. I found some other documents (by employment lawyers) online that support what you're saying: https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2009/10/23/can-employers-discriminate-against-younger-workers/ https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2009/10/23/can-employers-disc...
masonic 7y ago
This means you could advertise roles only for people over 40. True, but I have never seen this once in practice.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

normalperson 7y ago

There is no such thing as a "Talent Shortage." There is, however, a "competent hiring" shortage.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jakebasile 7y ago

Maybe there really isn't a shortage of tech talent, and that narrative has been pushed by companies in an effort to encourage more people to enter the industry with the promise of easily finding jobs that pay well in order to increase the supply with younger, less expensive workers who are more easily exploited for long hours and poor conditions? It stands to reason that more senior devs would be the ones shafted by this scheme. Maybe I should get my tinfoil hat checked out, but every time I see a giant tech company with one of those "everyone can learn to code!" pushes, all I see are executives hoping to play the long game and reduce the cost of engineering talent.

jknoepfler 7y ago
If you don't have name recognition driving candidates through the door, it can be shockingly difficult to get competent candidates. I'm talking basic senior engineer level (can be trusted to set up a web service from scratch without supervision). Most of the candidates you see either can't pass fizz buzz (no joke), are very junior (have no practical experience building real services), have severe behavioral problems (need to be told exactly what to do, can't be trusted to own a service, etc.), or are washed up enterprise technicians who need someone to build all their scaffolding for them and can't solve simple problems if there isn't an IDE for it (.NET/etc. lifer). The "smart" version of those archetypes often do OK at places like amazon, which provides scaffolding and oversite, but they will absolutely gut a small startup dev team. (source: personal experience regretting startup hires who seemed "ok" when we were desperate, who subsequently left a trail of sadness and surprises in their wake through inattention, stupidity, and general failure to care) I think this is particularly difficult for companies with non-technical founders that might lack strong technical leadership out the gate.
- rednerrus 7y ago
  This really puts into words the problems I've seen working in startups.
mattmar96 7y ago
Tech talent shortage is real. We can't find anyone worth interviewing right now, as a 5 person startup. (And no, we aren't age discriminating)

pacaro 7y ago

I wonder about this, I don't dispute that there is an issue here, but I think that this, and similar analyses, fails to take into account the change in the size of the IT workforce over time. I'm currently 47, I started my first paid developer role (job title "Analyst/Programmer"!) 25 years ago. The size of the job market then was a fraction of the size that it is now. Inevitably there are fewer older people in the workforce. I'm much more interested in attempts to quantify age-related hiring discrimination, something that I have been fortunate enough not to encounter (yet), but that my brother (50) currently feels like he is running up against.

jrochkind1 7y ago
that is a very good point.
reaperducer 7y ago
Age discrimination in hiring is real. Companies get around it by saying, "Oh, we can't possibly pay what someone with your level of experience expects." Usually even before a dollar figure has even been discussed.
- pacaro 7y ago
  For sure, I encountered a related issue about 18 years ago, I had been working for a company that was paying well, but that had closed down the project I was working on, as part of due diligence I was talking to other companies in addition to considering lateral moves. Several of the other companies were very clear that they couldn't pay me what I was accustomed to, and that was a show-stopper for them, regardless of whether I was interested in taking a lower income
  - pacaro 7y ago
    i.e. some potential employers will be leery about employing someone at a lower salary that they had previously earned, for a variety of reasons. I can imagine this being part of a double whammy with age discrimination.
- 7y ago

avgDev 7y ago

I feel as partially this happens because older people don't buy into the hype, can read through BS, and won't slave away 70 hrs a week for the same wage. Younger people are less experienced, have less opinions and in most case less life lessons. Tech companies want to move fast and make money, not question what is ethical.

threeseed 7y ago
> have less opinions I find this almost always to be the opposite.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  His statement could probably be better refined as "largely keep their opinions to themselves and do their jobs." IME, older workers were raised not to discuss politics or religion at work.
- kenhwang 7y ago
  Younger opinions are easier to influence. Older opinions are pretty ingrained which makes them annoying to deal with when they come up.
  - elcaminocomplex 7y ago
    Translating: "People with little experience have ill-formed opinions and thus when you point out the holes in their arguments they cave, whereas experienced people have well-formed opinions which makes it difficult for you when you have weak arguments by which you try to change their opinion."
    - ecnahc515 7y ago
      I agree with you but it’s still possible to make a perfectly well formed argument and still not be correct or the best choice for the situation.
    - sitkack 7y ago

noicebrewery 7y ago

Why pay an older software engineer a high rate for a wealth of experience when you can hire two graduates who won't make a 25 year old trust fund baby tech bro feel inadequate

reaperducer 7y ago

There was an interesting piece on the CBS Evening News, maybe this past Friday, about how some companies are bringing in older (50+) workers to great benefit. The only thing these people ask for is flexible schedules.

save_ferris 7y ago
I think this is a huge part of the conversation that is being overlooked. Younger workers are perhaps more willing to grind than more experienced devs. I’d gladly take 20% pay cut to get Fridays off, but I’d get laughed out of my current gig if I asked for that. It seems like most gigs are full-time, usually with an on-call rotation, and if those aren’t compatible with your schedule, good luck.
- hinkley 7y ago
  But they have to grind because they lack the experience to fall into those traps in the first place.

mpfundstein 7y ago

Honestly, the best devs/CTOs I worked with are older than 45... I don’t get why our industry is like this. Learn from the (old) masters... thats true for art as well as for coding

dboreham 7y ago

Odd that nobody is writing articles about how airlines are hiring 25 year old pilots or hospitals are recruiting 25 year old ansetheseologists. Their 55 year old colleagues stuck looking for gainful employment.

keyle 7y ago

Youngsters are more malleable to whatever theocratic management scheme you want to shoehorn in. Oldie don't buy in the cult driven bend-over management schemes used in many places. In short, they outwit their own positions.

rgbrenner 7y ago

There's no shortage of talent. If there was a shortage we would see real indicators of a shortage like increasing average salaries across the field, training programs, etc. Instead employers consistently use bullshit to filter, puzzles without any relation to the job, etc in their hiring. That's a strong indicator that there's no shortage. If employers are making up things to filter candidates, then they have too many options. If I had to guess, this is probably just more propaganda from the large tech companies to get more people into the field and an increased visa cap, so they can drive down wages.

h3throw 7y ago
I don't understand people who say this. Have you ever tried to hire? I'm 28yrs old and I make ~$400K/yr. That doesn't happen when there's some major abundance of talent sitting around.
- rgbrenner 7y ago
  I make quite a bit too... but the average developer doesnt.. average US software dev salary is just $100k/year.
  - jimbokun 7y ago
    That's more than about 90% of US workers.
    - mikekchar 7y ago
      TL;DR (in advance): I think you are correct in your estimate, though household income is higher than that. $100K household income is still considerably higher than most Americans make. Just to give some real numbers, the median household income in the US is $63,688. Unfortunately I couldn't find reliable numbers for dual income families in the US, but it appears to be over 60% (I saw numbers anywhere between 60-69%, but unfortunately no authoritative references). Rough histogram of income distribution is: 10th percentile: < $15K 20th percentile: $15K <=> $25K 30th percentile: $25K <=> $35K 40th percentile: $35K <=> $50K 50th percentile: $50K <=> $65K 60th percentile: $65K <=> $80K 70th percentile: $80K <=> $130K 80th percentile: $130K <=> $160K 90th percentile: > $160K I constructed this from a variety of different sources since I couldn't find anything that stated it explicitly. It is not entirely accurate, but it should give you a rough idea of the distribution. Would be nice if someone could find better data.

throwawaybungie 7y ago

This is a tough one— a lot of hiring & “diversity & inclusion” initiatives very rarely discuss age Is that others’ experience?

t34543 7y ago
In the companies I’ve worked: yes.
sethammons 7y ago
Age has been explicitly called out in every D&I initiative I've been party to, just not as loudly as some other segments, namely gender, sexual orientation, and race. But definitely mentioned.

robotburrito 7y ago

I'm 38 and a relatively new dev with ~3 years of experience in a wide variety of tech. Live here in SF and have been doing the whole job hunt thing. This article stresses me out and makes me feel like if I don't get my next good job in a year or so I am basically locked out of a career... I hope this is not true!

scarface74 7y ago
Honestly, while I don’t see much discrimination for older devs in general. If your experience doesn’t match what you “should” have for your age, it might be different.

colechristensen 7y ago

When you job interview around the bay area one thing which is absolutely striking is the diversity of the companies you visit. Sometimes it feels like you're in different countries on opposite sides of the planet. There's no way that is accidental, agism and racism is absolutely rampant, but not necessarily along traditional lines.

masonic 7y ago
I don't see true diversity. There is little ethnic diversity off the white/asian axis and little age diversity beyond age 35. There isn't usually much gender diversity in technical roles, either.

nine_zeros 7y ago

There is definitely ageism but thats because younger unqualified employees are asked to evaluate older candidates. Younger employees (especially single ones) are usually subconsciously also looking for buddies to have fun with. Which eliminates a lot of older people who just want to work and go home. Further, younger employees also expect older candidates to be some super goddamn geniuses. Even if they are, the interview process never looks for that genius. Also, not all old candidates are genius and its hard for young kids to acknowledge because they just dont know any better. On the other hand, old farts sometimes think too much of themselves. Also, some older candidates just dont want to relocate. Which reduces options A LOT. Very few old candidates want to relocate from rural Indiana to SF bay area. The jobs exist, the talent shortage exists. But the demand isn't meeting supply and when it does, the evaluators are usually incompetent.

gleenn 7y ago

> One problem is that some older IT workers who get too comfortable with their skills risk falling behind, especially in the era of artificial intelligence, said Michael Solomon, co-founder and managing partner at 10x Ascend, an advisory firm for senior technology job seekers. Um, what? AI isn't taking any tech jobs. Maybe once we figure out how to have the robots program themselves...

jimbokun 7y ago
But it could take the tech jobs of programmers that don't know how to utilize ML/AI technology stacks.
ecnahc515 7y ago
I definitely read that differently than you. They’re just saying AI is a newer field and that older people tend to have less experience here.
- gleenn 7y ago
  The "era of Artificial Intelligence" doesn't seem like it's a new software stack to learn when phrased like that to me, but to each their own.

Iv 7y ago

> One problem is that some older IT workers who get too comfortable with their skills risk falling behind, especially in the era of artificial intelligence I am 38, I am in the gap they point out, and I almost fell in it because for too long I thought deep learning was a hype that would eventually die out. I had to have a client force me to look into it to realize that half of my skillset in computer vision became obsolete almost overnight, and the other half is eroding quickly. We think we know better than the youngsters and in several fields, that's painfully obvious, but let's not be oblivious to the fact that tech still evolves and that half of our job is catching up with it.

ecnahc515 7y ago
Would you mind elaborating? As a young developer who wishes to remain a in the engineering track long term, Id like to understand more about how you realized your skill set was no longer “up to par”. I’m surprised computer vision is becoming less relevant, is it because the techniques have shifted from known algorithms that work to using machine learning to develop better algorithms from training?
- mikekchar 7y ago
  Not the OP, but this is incredibly common. I will say that if you wish to continue working as a programmer for your entire career it is a mistake to specialise in a particular technology. It doesn't matter what technology that is. The more you specialise, the less versatile you appear to employers. It just doesn't matter what you are working on. It could be a website, or it could be a computer vision system. You use a handful of languages, frameworks, techniques, etc and 10 years later these are no longer in vogue. I think the most important thing to keep reminding yourself is that your career will hopefully last 40-45 years! The pace change of technology is increasing, rather than decreasing. If you think the flavour of the month JS frameworks are hard to keep track of now, wait 10 years when there are 4 to 5 times as many programmers working and what's hot changes practically every day. You are not "safe" with any technology. Even ML techniques will change completely an absurd number of times in the 45 years of your career. Your only hope of staying employed as a programmer for the entire time is to build yourself as someone who can pick up and work on anything at the drop of a hat. Similarly, you need a "story" that explains why you are worth more money than a person with 2-3 years of experience that has specifically trained for the flavour of the month that the company is using now. They will happily chew up and spit out those young programmers and pick up new ones when they go with the new technology. Why would they spend a premium on you? You need an answer (and a good answer) for that question. (I was going to try to answer that question for you, but it's probably better for you to figure it out for yourself... Plus any answer I give is undoubtedly piss off a bunch of people who will identify overmuch with the group I'm marketing myself as "better than" ;-) )

codingslave 7y ago

As has been mentioned in here, the "Talent Shortage" was made up to get an increase in H1B visa workers to drive down wages and get more for their money. It has always been about flooding the developer job market. Case in point are the interviews at many big tech companies that require leetcode/algorithms interviews. Companies are ready to reject any candidate that makes even a small mistake on one of their solutions, or misses the exact optimal solution. If they really needed top talent and couldn't find it, they wouldn't be so careless in their hiring rejections. Another issue is also that its really difficult to quickly shift tech stacks on a dime. As much as people like to claim it to be possible, even just upgrading from Hadoop/MapReduce/Older big data technologies to Apache Spark is a massive time investment. The paradigms are the same, the technology when used in practice is different. Workers can see their whole knowledge base become useless in the span of two years. As an individual worker, if this happens three times in 8 years, I think burnout would be expected. Anyone who is capable of constantly updating their technology knowledge to a T is probably already CTO of a company somewhere. Maintaining the ability to memorize and understand inane minutia over a few decades span is rare, and is probably coupled with severe disabilities in other areas of life.

kundiis 7y ago

Management can hire 2 fresh grads, roughly same cost as 1 senior candidate. There are companies where headcount is important for managers to become and grow their org. In addition, fresh grads usually have exposure to latest stuff and are eager to make their way in, work 60+ hrs, have fresh perspective, can crack academic style company interviews. Overall good for the company for less money.

sys_64738 7y ago
The counter to this is those fresh ideas are built on their limited knowledge of some buzzwords connected to a framework in python which is only in alpha quality. The number of kids who think new is better because they used it on their final year team project so must apply it to production servers is scary. It needs older, experienced workers to say the magic word: No.
MrMorden 7y ago
Two fresh grads working 60 hours a week are about as productive as one fresh grad working 40 hours a week. That may be good for someone, but not the company.
masonic 7y ago
Management can hire 2 fresh grads, roughly same cost as 1 senior candidate Then 18 months later, both cheap, fresh grads would be gone, chasing the first shinier bauble dangled by a competitor.

hanoz 7y ago

Interesting to read that "the largest gap occurs among workers ages 35 to 44”. This is the first wave of internet professionals, the people who built the web as we know it. Above that age range and you're getting into old school IT territory, and below you've got the new wave of web developers with different ideas who might regard the old guard as being stuck in their ways.

skybrian 7y ago
That range is too young for "people who built the web." A 44-year-old was 20 in 1995 (just after Netscape came out), so probably still in school, and a 35-year-old was 11.
- hanoz 7y ago
  I knew I was going to get picked up on that. I mean brought the web out of academia and made it the universally recognised platform it is today.

rinchik 7y ago

Are they really being left out though? I understand the notion of ageism, and not at all saying it doesn't happen in software development, the point is, what if there are other factors also in play here? What if this "trend" is just a natural phenomenon? Software Development is one of the most aggressive industries that are out there. Tech evolves daily with major trends shifting monthly. It's extremely hard to keep up! And it's extremely easy to become "part of the road" if you don't invest heavily in your professional development by studying the "steamroller". What if older software developers are just the road, modern tech "steamroller" is rolling over? There are quite a few percent of the bright and knowledgeable older software engineers, but what about the "average" ones? Ones who got tired, have families and just don't want to be bothered with making themselves uncomfortable by trying to "keep up"? What about those who were sitting comfortably a decade with the oldest tech you can imagine that was "current" in early 2000, and now wind has changed? It seems logical to assume that a job search for those is gonna be tough! Also about bootcamps, Erik Meijer makes an interesting point about "amateurs in our industry", that people who live, sleep, and breath code for 20+ years should be able to comfortably retire near 40, meaning this problem we are discussing here should never be a problem to begin with.

sys_64738 7y ago

There are a whole slew of issues related to this. Managers often feel that older employees don't take them as seriously as younger people. Younger folk are less likely to have seen it 'all' like older workers. There's also the age dynamic of an org. Some companies hire young because of the culture of 'work hard play hard' where younger folk buy-in but older folks skip it and go home to their families. Older people are more experienced and more expensive in general. Younger people are also more likely to be willing to work to burn out as they've not done it before and managers know that. My two pronged approach to getting older in the workforce is to make sure there are people older than me at my work place, and have an exit strategy for when the jobs dry up completely.

marcoseliziario 7y ago

I am over 40 right now, and, frankly, I don't see too much of this problem right now. As you get older, you need to understand that you need to adapt. It's easier to get in the trap of thinking that the old ways are better (and sometimes, indeed they are), but it doesn't matter. You have to go with the flow. Another important thing is that you shouldn't get too attached to technologies. Move with the times, be aggressive with learning. Appreciate new languages, new paradigms. Yes, it sucks when you spent hours honing your skills with Hadoop and then one day you find out that all the cool kids are doing spark. But, the thing is, the people that are doing spark now are the people that were doing Hadoop yesterday, some of them even older than you. It was you that got in the comfort zone and didn't see that the field was evolving. While you were satisfied doing Hadoop, some people were thinking of how the job could be done in a different way. And I am not telling here that you should be doing open source, but you should have kept yourself on the loop. It is not unfair, and it's not unique to our profession. there was a time where lobotomy was the hot thing on psychiatry, people probably spent hours honing their skills on it, and then, someday, science evolved and we figured out that those skills were not only useless but also dangerous. Maybe this happens way faster in our profession, but also it is a lot easier for us to keep ourselves current on the state of the art than for a surgeon.

scarface74 7y ago
I’m 45 and I share your experience - no age discrimination. But, I did hear my manager (50+), who is very technical and often gets so sick of the process to get things done, he will pull up an IDE and do a POC himself, bemoan the fact that older developers are good for backend development and architecture but not as good at modern front end development. I’m not taking any chances. I’m moving more into cloud architecture but hopefully I can stay more in the professional services/development/consulting than the Visio creating/Project Management/Solutions Architect role. But, I’m definitely not spending the energy keeping up with the latest $cool_kids front end stack.
- marcoseliziario 7y ago
  Funnily enough, I love React. Maybe because I am old enough to have worked with Borland's Delphi in the past. The feeling I have is that React and UI frameworks put programmers with no design background back in the User Interface game. Because, for the love of God, I hate CSS with a passion. I enjoy doing side projects not only for the money, but also because of the good feeling of owning the whole stack of the product.

jmkd 7y ago

I'm mid-40s, Xoogler, Program Manager, Startup founder & failer, UK-based. 130 applications since March, 4 interviews, no offers. Previous blue-chip job history with 100% application success rate, through my 20s and 30s. Have now left the industry due to what I and various recruitment professionals had to conclude was age discrimination. It exists.

cpeterso 7y ago
I now omit my university dates on my resume and sometimes drop older jobs LIFO. The tools and experience from those jobs is less relevant to my current work anyway.
frogperson 7y ago
have you considered consulting? Companies love to pay extra for experience, but only in small doses.

ThrowMeAwayOkay 7y ago

I just want to say: read these threads if you value your software career. There is golden advice from those who’ve seen it. Done it.

ijiiijji1 7y ago

The "noble savage" mythology of engineering is the "neophyte genius".. youthful != better, despite consumerism KoolAid or blatant ageism sentiments to the contrary. You can't get Joe Armstrongs at 16-24.. mastery and wisdom aren't things a capable novice can contain a-priori.

altmind 7y ago

There is no IT talent shortage. IT companies circulate this myth to get access to work visas and broaden the workforce market, optimizing the salary budget. The universities reaffirm that to get more applicants.